Banks plays the insufferable Effie Trinket in The Hunger Games, based on the series of novels by Suzanne Collins. “Effie Trinket was a really fun role to get ready for because so much of it was about her hair and her clothes and the way she talks and walks,” Banks told Women’s Health (via Huffington Post). “She is a very theatrical person. I watched a lot of ‘Auntie Mame’ to prepare for playing Effie.”

Banks credits her uncle for giving her the push she needed to act. “I get great advice from lots of people,” Banks said. “I suppose the best advice I ever got, frankly the advice that changed my life, came from my uncle who told me to go to drama school and study acting instead of taking a job, because he said the job would always be there.”